Clandestino

The second part of the season starts with a three-episode immersion in the Sinaloa cartel, the most dangerous criminal organization on the planet. This access, one of the most difficult that Beriain and his team has achieved, has a very special value: the filming took place between the arrest of the leader of the cartel, Joaquin El Chapo Guzmán, and his extradition to the United States.

To reach the heart of the cartel, Beriain will immerse himself in a universe populated by armies of hitmen, narcos, corrupt policemen, human mules, chemists who process drugs in scenes reminiscent of the Breaking Bad series and eternal parties of the junior narco, Children of big bosses who mix alcohol, cocaine and weapons. A world ruled by mafia honor codes, betrayals, corruption and death. A unique trip in which Beriain will enter the houses where the cartel tortures its enemies, will check the level of collusion that the drug traffickers have with the police and will see with their own eyes how the same route that makes drugs reach the United States brings back weapons to Mexico. A three-month odyssey that will take you from the bastion of the cartel in the Sierra, where they have their opium and marijuana crops, passing through the laboratories of Culiacán and the collection houses near Tijuana or their final destination in the streets of Los Angeles.

“Making the Sinaloa cartel was a major challenge,” says Beriain: “We entered the cartel after the capture of Chapo Guzmán and in the midst of the power war to succeed it. It was a challenge to build trust at a time when they looked at each other with absolute suspicion”.

After the trilogy around the world’s most famous drug cartel, the second season of Clandestino shows us firsthand the extreme gang violence in El Salvador through a series of moving and shocking human stories that had never before been shown on television.
Regarding these two episodes focused on the violence in El Salvador, Beriain says that “it is one of the most shocking stories we have had the privilege of telling. In a country of wonderful people, we have tried to tell a story about justice and revenge. A story that, I think, will not leave anyone indifferent”.

Clandestino comes back with six new episodes focusing around thrilling subjects: the problem of kidnappings in Venezuela, the ‘Baby Camorra’ in southern Italy, the mafias in Albania, the weapon trafficking business in the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador or Colombia and the drug trafficking in those countries. As a novelty, this new season will extend its duration up to an hour and a half to deepen even more in each of the themes. We want to offer a unique and unfiltered vision of clandestine and inaccessible worlds that includes different points of view to make up an integral look.

This season of Clandestino has been recognized for the second time as one of the four best current affairs programs in the world. The distinction is made by the RealScreen Awards, which year after year selects a group of four documentaries in the category of Non-Fiction Social Current Affairs. On this occasion, the program hosted by David Beriain shares nomination with HBO’s At the heart of Gold inside the USA Gymnastic Scandal, Period. End of Sentence of Netflix, and Surviving R. Kelly of Lifetime.

“This season we have experienced some of the most intense and difficult moments since we started recording Clandestino. We have been involuntary witnesses of how a band of Venezuelan kidnappers formed by active police officers called their victim’s family to give him 48 hours before killing his loved one. We have seen how these kidnappings are often organized from prisons, where prisoners have welcomed us with rifles and grenades.

For the first time in Clandestino history, we have stepped on the streets of Europe with that new Camorra led by teen gangsters. We have seen how easy it has been to achieve a new identity in Albania and we have entered the mafia of that country in a world ruled by ancestral codes of honor and revenge. We have seen Mexican drug traffickers cut roads to land planes loaded with American weapons and followed their trail to the jungles of Colombia to end up in the hands of the guerrillas.

In Colombia, we have got the drug traffickers to show us their industrial cocaine laboratories. And seen how 400 of those kilos were landed in Mexico. It has been twelve months in which thanks to the support of Discovery MAX Spain and its commitment to our journalism, we have continued to have the privilege of being witnesses. I truly believe that this is the best Clandestino season”, assures Beriain.